Windows Phone 8.1 now available on Windows Phone Preview..

Windows Phone 8.1 now available on Windows Phone Preview..

Starting today, you can update your personal dev phone(s) to run Windows Phone 8.1 using the Windows Phone Preview for Developers program . Along with the tooling delivered in Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 RC, developers can now get everything they need to start building and testing Windows Phone apps and universal Windows apps. Even better, Windows Phone Store is also starting to accept app submissions and to enable app linking today – enabling you to bring the universal Windows app experience to your beta users and consumers.

To update your Windows Phone 8 device to 8.1, you will need to download the app and opt into the program (the process is outlined on the Windows Phone Dev Center); if your phone is already opted in, then all you should need to do is head over to your phone’s settings and check for an update.

Windows Phone Preview for Developers program

The Windows Phone Preview program, introduced last October, gives our developer community access to prerelease builds of Windows Phone updates before the operating system updates are made generally available to consumers. We make these updates available to you to enable on-device testing, and to enable you to build and test platform capabilities not present in the emulator.

For the majority of developers, we know that it is critical for you to see your app running on a physical phone prior to submitting to the Store. For me, I try to use my app on a device for 3-4 days before submitting updates to the Store. My emulator-based testing typically is focused on functional testing (does the code work as designed), while my on-phone testing tells me more about the app’s real-world usability (e.g., touch target sizing, load times).

Beyond testing, there are a number of app scenarios that just can’t be done using the emulator alone. Most of these scenarios involve device sensors like Bluetooth, NFC, and the camera. But these also involve scenarios including app-to-app communication (when integrating with third-party apps that you need to install from the Store) or using phone capabilities like voice.

Participation requirements for the Windows Phone Preview program are the same as last fall. In order to opt your phone into the program, you must meet one of the following three criteria: (a) you’re a registered developer on the Windows Phone Dev Center, or (b) you’re a registered developer with Windows App Studio, or (c) your phone is developer unlocked (which anyone can do using the developer phone registration tool, which is included as part of the Windows Phone tooling). As mentioned above, check out the Windows Phone Preview Program for Developers pagefor full details. If you have any further questions or encounter an issue while updating your phone, we have a team of update experts monitoring the program’s support forums – ask a question in the forum, and someone should be able to help you out.

New reference app: MSDN Voice Search

Speaking of voice (see what I did there?), the MSDN team released a new reference app today – the MSDN Voice Search app– that demonstrates how to integrate your app into the new contextual voice capabilities available in Windows Phone 8.1.

The app itself is very simple and straight-forward, surfacing the vast MSDN documentation library to you from the Cortana experience. Once you have the app installed, ask ‘MSDN, what are universal Windows apps?’ while in Cortana and she’ll launch the MSDN Voice Search app and help you find an answer.

For more information on integrating your app into the Windows Phone speech and natural language experience, check out the Speech Dev Center and the recorded session from Build. Additionally, the MSDN Voice Search app team will be posting the source code for the app so that you can see how they made the magic happen.

To help you cross the last mile getting your apps published to Windows Phone 8.1, the Store will be opening later today to link and publish your apps, and Windows is sponsoring over 60 //publish/ events hosted around the globe next month. The //publish/ events will be a great opportunity to be part of the global WPDev community, as well as get some last minute advice on your phone and universal Windows app(s). If you haven’t already registered for a local //publish/ event, check out the //publish/ website and find the one closest to you.

Love the update. Impressed with Cortana and she'll be used more often now. I especially like the new 3 columns on my 920. I've had a day to play with it and I think I've sorted all the transparent tiles I want on there to allow my wallpaper to fully show through. Awesome feature.

@Coke Robot, I agree, the 3 column look on a Lumia 920...at least for moi is just too small...I picked up and played with Lumia 1520, but I could not fit it comfortably in my jeans or shorts pocket...lol

In this Dev Preview have Some Problem, my friend who is not getting feature Cortana when She Already settings Region to U.S
And Bing Vision to Read Barcode (QR) Must Manually Setting from Camera - Lenses - Bing Version

And For Lumia520 Now Support 3 Tile after Update to Dev Preview (Very Happy)

In this Dev Preview have Some Problem, my friend who is not getting feature Cortana when She Already settings Region to U.S
And Bing Vision to Read Barcode (QR) Must Manually Setting from Camera - Lenses - Bing Version

And For Lumia520 Now Support 3 Tile after Update to Dev Preview (Very Happy)

You region, language, and keyboard must be set to US. You may also need to wait a few days I was having this same issue on my 920 with a French developer ROM I flashed onto it and set everything to the US. Today, everything is working just fine. Cortana and I are best friends.

A Bing engineer was mentioned in saying they are still working on the back end technical side of things with Cortana.

How to Install Preview for Developers App for Windows Phone Pre-release Updates
If you are registered with App Studio (anyone can) OR a registered Windows Phone developer, then you can receive pre-release OS updates on their dev phone, directly from Microsoft. You can use the Preview for...